Breeding

Breeding is the method of choosing two of your Pokémon to send to the local region's Day Care in the hopes that the pair will produce an Egg. This is a useful technique to raise Pokémon with unusual attributes, such as elevated Attack, Defense, Speed, etc. compared to members of the same species on a similar level. Pokémon that are hatched from Eggs can have access to stronger attacks earlier than normal, such as learning a parent's TM or HM move. Some Pokémon, like Pichu, can learn a move the parents would never learn, such as Volt Tackle if one of the parents are holding a special item, such as the Light Ball in Pichu's case.

Conditions

When the Day Care Center alerts you of a new Egg, you must work at hatching it. You must have an empty slot on your team to accept the Egg. The Day Care center will keep it if you did not do so. Every egg has a special number of steps required to hatch it, so travel around the region (a bicycle will be much quicker) and hatch the egg.

Certain conditions must be met to create an Egg.

Pokémon must be opposite genders or one parent a Ditto.

The parents must be compatible (in the same Egg Group).

An egg will be created quicker if one or more of these conditions is met:

The Pokémon are the same species

The Pokémon have different IDs (are from different games or have a different original trainer).

These will combine:

Best scenario: Same species, Different ID

Mid: Same Species, Same ID / Different ID, Different Species

Worst-case Scenario: Same ID, Different Species.

Pokémon keep track of family trees. You cannot mate the offspring of a Pokémon with its parent, even if they are compatible. Some Pokémon cannot produce Eggs, such as the Legendary Pokémon (except Manaphy), and baby Pokémon such as Pichu cannot produce Eggs. Some Pokémon belong to multiple groups, meaning they can breed with more Pokémon.

Hatching

When you carry an egg, you need to walk a number of steps for it to hatch. Different eggs have different amount of steps for it to hatch. This number will always be the same for all members of that species.

If you carry a Pokémon with the ability Flame Body or Magma Armor in the same party as your egg it will halve the number of steps required to hatch the egg.

When the egg is about to hatch, you will receive a message. Then the screen will show you to egg being hatched into a new baby Pokémon. The baby Pokémon will be at Level 5 when hatched (Level 1 in Generation IV and on).

Breeding Stats

Newborn Pokémon inherit stats from their parents. One IV (Individual value) is given from each parent (even a Ditto) and the other four will be randominzed.

If a Pokémon holds an Everstone while breeding the offspring has a 50% chance of inheriting the nature.

If a Pokemon holds a destiny knot while breeding it will pass down 5 IVs from both parents (ie. 3 from one parent and 2 from the other) randomly.

Breeding Moves

Newborn Pokémon can inherit moves from their parents, some high-level moves can be learned by the offspring. For example, if you have a Blaziken with the move Overheat, which is learnable from TM that can only be use once in Gen. I - IV, its offspring that is the opposite gender of its parents will learn Overheat.

There are three types of moves that can be taught through this strategy.

Learned Moves - It is the moves that any Pokémon caught in the wild would know at Level 5.

Inherited Moves - It is the moves learned through the Evolutionary process or via a TM can be passed from the male parent Pokémon, even if the move cannot be learned or used until after Level 5.

Level-up moves much be known by BOTH parents.

Egg Moves - Egg Moves are learned from the male parent Pokémon, but these are different than Inherited Moves. Egg Moves are moves the Pokémon would not normally be able to learn naturally through TMs and leveling-up.

When a Pokémon hatches, it has the moves a wild Pokémon at Level 1 would know. For example, Pichu will know Thundershock and Charm. The Pokémon has enough room to learn two more moves: these spots can be filled with Inherited Moves. If the Pokémon has access to more moves than you have empty space for, it will replace the Learned Moves with the Inherited and Egg Moves.

If both parents know the same high-level move, the baby Pokémon will also know it, despite being Level 1. Also, TM moves you would normally have one shot at using can be "re-used" by breeding the move down from the male parent Pokémon.

Baby Pokémon

By Breeding

The list below shows the Pokémon that cannot be caught in the wild but can be obtainable by breeding.

Breeding Groups

These tables display Pokémon that can breed with other Pokémon from the same group. For example, Pikachu can breed with Marill as they are found in the same group. Those that belongs to Group 0 cannot produce Eggs.

Group 0 - Undiscovered-Group

Note: All Legendary Pokémon, except Phione and Manaphy, cannot breed.Rotom can breed but only with Ditto

Trivia

The first hatchable egg appeared in Pokémon Gold and Silver. Togepi hatched from it.

No one really knows where eggs come from.

Togepi evolves to Togetic much faster than other egg Pokémon, still, it will depend on how happy you make Togepi.

Normally Shiny Pokémon have a rarity of 1 in 8,192. However, with breeding, that can be reduced to 1 in 2,048 with the use of the Masuda Method, named after Junichi Masuda, the person that revealed it. It involves breeding two Pokémon from different language games (For example, an English Infernape with a Japanese Ampharos)